Data communication receivers use digital demodulators to recover data from a received signal. A transmitter modulates a corresponding transmitted signal in a manner that conveys the data being communicated. A wide variety of modulation schemes are used in data communications, and many of these schemes, such as QPSK, conveys data through phase relationships between quadrature components of the transmitted signal. A digital demodulator in a data communication receiver operates in accordance with a selected modulation scheme to recover the data being conveyed. For space communication applications, many demodulators are typically required for multi-user communications. A large number of demodulators in a satellite orbiting the earth would be prohibitive due to cost, weight and power consumption. For these reasons and more, the use of many demodulators is not very practical in a commercial satellite communication system.
Thus what is needed is an apparatus and method that reduces the cost, weight and power consumption for demodulating multi-user communication data. What is also needed is a multichannel demodulator and method suitable for satellite communications.